A data center is a facility to house data processing devices and associated components such as computers, servers, network devices and storage devices. The data center is designed to provide a controlled environment for efficient operations of the data processing devices. To increase the convenience, a portable data center is developed, wherein the data processing devices are installed within a shipping container. During operations of the data processing devices, a substantial amount of heat is generated. If the heat is not effectively dissipated, the performance of the data processing devices will be deteriorated. It is critical to adjust the operating conditions of the data center.
FIG. 1 is a schematic view illustrating an air conditioning system of a portable data center according to the prior art. The portable data center 10 comprises a shipping container (not shown), plural data processing devices 11 and plural airflow-driving devices 12. The data processing devices 11 are for example computers, servers, network devices, and the like. The airflow-driving devices 12 are configured to drive and guide airflow to cool the data processing devices 11. The shipping container further includes a partition plate 13 and a bottom plate 14. The partition plate 13 has plural hollow portions (not shown). The data-processing devices 11 are disposed on the partition plate 13. The airflow-driving devices 12 are disposed under the partition plate 13 and aligned with respective hollow portions. A gap is defined between the partition plate 13 and the bottom plate 14. Consequently, the airflow may be transported through a bottom space 15 between the partition plate 13 and the bottom plate 14.
During normal operations of the airflow-driving devices 12, the airflow driven by the airflow-driving devices 12 is guided toward the data processing devices 11 to cool the data processing devices 11. The heated airflow from the data processing devices 11 is guided downwardly to the bottom space 15. Then, the heated airflow is cooled by a heat exchanger (not shown), which is disposed within the bottom space 15. The cooled airflow exited from the heat exchanger is driven and guided upwardly by the airflow-driving devices 12. That is, during normal operations of the airflow-driving devices 12, the airflow is circulated within the shipping container along the normal airflow path to increase the cooling efficacy.
The air conditioning system of the portable data center, however, still has some drawbacks. For example, in a case that one of the airflow-driving devices 12 is disabled (in a standby status or a maintaining status, or breakdown), the original airflow path is altered into a low flow-resistance airflow path. Please refer to FIG. 1. For clarification, only three airflow-driving devices 12 are shown. The middle airflow-driving device 12 is disabled. A portion of the cooled airflow outputted from the left airflow-driving device 12 and a portion of the cooled airflow outputted from the right airflow-driving device 12 may be backwardly introduced into the airflow outlet of the disabled airflow-driving device 12 and exhausted out of the airflow inlet. In this situation, a small amount of cooled airflow is suffered from a short-circulating problem. If the short-circulating problem occurs, the cooling efficacy of the adjacent airflow-driving devices 12 will be deteriorated.
Therefore, there is a need of providing an air conditioning system of a portable data center so as to obviate the drawbacks encountered from the prior art.